The BlackBerry Dakota has managed to shy away from the lens of a camera for quite some time, but it looks like anyone looking for their next top-of-the-line BlackBerry device might be staring at their next device. Boy Genius Report has managed to get the first shot of the device, which features a capacitive touchscreen along with the company’s trademark physical keyboard below.
Research In Motion have managed to throw in plenty of features, if the listed specifications pan out to be true. Though, as we’ve seen in other devices in the past from the company, the Dakota doesn’t stand as the king of the smartphone hill, but strictly at the head of the BlackBerry lineage for a short time. Features like a 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen display, but with a VGA resolution of 640 x 480.
The device will also feature Near Field Communications (NFC) built-in. It is a Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE device, with a 5MP camera on the back. RIM has included 4GB of internal memory, along with 768MB of RAM. The Dakota will have Bluetooth connectivity, integrated 802.11 WiFi b/g/n, an accelerometer, proximity sensor, and a magnetometer. Perhaps one of the device’s best features is the ability to use it as a 3G mobile hotspot. It will use a microUSB port for charging.
The Dakota is reported to be launching with BlackBerry OS 6.1, so we imagine there will be new features within the mobile Operating System (OS) itself, but details regarding those are not available at this time. What carrier exactly the new Dakota will launch on is up in the air, but it is likely that the device will launch on AT&T some time in the future. No exact date is available.
[Update]: It looks like BlackBerry OS 6.1 just broke cover over at DevCon Asia over in Bali late last night. Some of the new features in the OS will be the new magnetometer listed above, and APIs for digital compass usage. There will also be support for OpenGL-ES 2.0, Window API, and event-based geo-fencing location APIs.
Capacitive touchscreen devices have always been a hassle when it’s cold and you’re wearing gloves. Many phones have trouble picking up any input from anything that is not skin to screen. However, late last night it came to our attention that the Samsung Nexus S has an extreme sensitivity level and will even pick up input through cloth such as a sweatshirt or gloves.
We ran many tests with the device and came to the conclusion that you can get input through some cotton gloves or even thick cotton material. This seems to be the case with most current-gen Samsung devices such as the Nexus S, Samsung Focus, and Galaxy Tab. Our initial tests with the Nexus S shows truly how responsive the screen is, it works flawlessly, as if you were giving the device direct finger contact.
We do not know how Samsung has produced such an impressive and responsive screen, or even if they’re aware of how responsive the device is when not receiving direct fingertip contact. You can check out the video below, and see the pink glove in action as it utilizes the Nexus S’ display.
Just incase you might not know, Samsung officially announced today the Continuum, a lovely little phone with a separate 1.8-inch notifications panel. We were hanging out at the Samsung press event this evening and got a chance to wrap our paws around the Continuum, what with it’s Android 2.1 (weird?), 512 MB or ROM, 384MB or RAM, and integrated Wifi. For more information on the press event, head on over to “Samsung Continuum for Verizon Due in Stores November 11th”. For more information regarding this very brightly backgrounded phone, head deeper into this post.
The Samsung Continuum, distributed through Verizon, features a 1GHz processor, a Ticker 1.8 inch display under the main display – the main display being a 3.4 inch capacitive touchscreen Super AMOLED, and Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 user interface. The device is comparable to Samsung’s Fascinate, already available through Verizon for $199 after $100 mail-in rebate, but feels noticeably smaller. The Ticker seems like a fun idea, but will take some getting used-to for any first-time user. Check out the original post over at Android Community and look at this video-amongst-videos hands-on too to get a better idea of how the 1.8 inch display functions:
That fish sausage stylus might improve your cold weather accuracy, but it’s not the wacky accessory of choice to reliably pull off that Ultra Combo in Street Fighter IV. For that, you need buttons, and a niche Japanese product has your back — the Tactile+Plus, a set of translucent nubs you stick right on your capacitive touchscreen to get a tactile feel for your game. ¥630 (about $7.75) buys you two packs of the screen protector bubbles and directional pad equivalents, which Japanese publication Impress Watch says work well enough in Street Fighter that they could keep playing without looking down at the screen. They’re not as useful in Sonic the Hedgehog, apparently, where the virtual D-pad is a slightly larger size, but if all you want is a perfect ego-destroying-uppercut on the go, you can’t beat the price.
Today, people love to manipulate their devices with a touchscreen. Whether it’s a tablet, or even a PC, people want to be able to touch something to make it happen. It’s even more apparent with cell phones, as almost every phone out there incorporates a touchscreen. But, as we get into the colder months, it’s going to become increasingly difficult for some people in some locations to use their capacitive touchscreen mobile phones outside. Not for long, as the Agloves are here to save the day.
Sure, there are other gloves out there that will let you work with a capacitive touchscreen display, but it’s the Agloves that were created using the best scientific research to create a whole new type of glove. The gloves feature a silver yarn that’s knitted into the entirety of the gloves. The result, is that the gloves offer up ten-finger control, so that you can use all of your fingers to interact with your device. So, that full-screen keyboard on the iPad is still usable.
Thanks to the silver yarn, the Agloves will be able to keep your fingers and hands warm, despite their lightweight nature. And, thankfully, the gloves are designed to be unisex, so all the guys out there won’t look like they’re wearing a woman’s accessory to work on their phone. What’s better, though, is that the Agloves are available right now, and they only cost $17.99.
Oh snap! This is exactly what Nokia needs right now — another cheap Android handset to gobble up its wallet-friendly stronghold. What we’re looking at here is Orange’s oddly named San Francisco, a £99 ($154) pay-as-you-go Eclair handset crafted by ZTE. Much like its humble sibling Racer, Orange’s 4.6-ounce offering is loaded with a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 chipset, 3.2 megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio, and MicroSD expansion. Yet for the same price, the San Francisco somehow comes with a larger 3.5-inch 480 x 800 OLED capacitive touchscreen. This sure sounds like a tempting deal, but don’t whip out your credit card just yet — we’ll give you a yay or nay once we’ve seen how the phone fares in real life. For now, check out the official promo video after the break.
Hitachi has grown to be one of those companies that’s focusing a lot on technology of the future lately, and we don’t have a problem with that at all. Especially when they’re making movies like Minority Report come to life. This time around, though, they’ve managed to create the same kind of touch panel that devices like the iPad and iPhone use, but with a bit of a twist.
When it comes to touchscreens, resistive panels let you use pretty much whatever you want, because instead of utilizing the electricity in your skin to make actions happen, it actually uses “pressure.” Meaning you’ve got to put some effort into making a resistive screen do what you want it to do. However, it does mean you get to use stylus devices, or use your fingers tucked away nicely in an insulating material like a glove. Overall, though, capacitive touch panels have become the focus of mainstream consumers, based on their ease of use.
Hitachi must see some market in a capacitive touchscreen that will let you use a stylus, and even your gloved hand, because that’s exactly what they’ve done. The stylus is actually a synthetic-resin pen, but the panel itself will allow owners to use it by a myriad of methods. You can use multi-touch if you want, that syn-resin pen, or even your gloved hand, without ever having to switch devices. The panel is able to fully detect both conductive materials and insulating materials seamlessly, by converting the input information to capacitive. What’s better, though, is that a normal controller chip can be used for the whole thing, so more money doesn’t have to get utilized for inclusion of special chips.
Hitachi, who loves to show off their future tech, plans on showcasing the display at this year’s Createc trade show that takes place in Japan from October 5th to the 9th. As soon as we get to see more of it, you will to, so stay tuned.
If you’re a fan of monitors, or touching monitors to make things happen, then it looks like 3M’s got something in the works for you. Over at InfoComm 2010, the company pulled the curtain off their 22-inch multi-touch monitor. And, when we say multi-touch, we mean they’ve managed to go to the extreme with what’s inside the M2256PW, but it’s all in a very, very good way. And no, it’s not a USB 3.0 monitor, either.
The 22-inch monitor is capable of detecting upwards of 20 points simultaneously. It comes manufactured with a projected capacitive touch panel, and there’s a trio of capacitive chips tucked away in the thin frame of the monitor. The resolution is 1,680 x 1,050, and 3M boasts that the response time of you touching the monitor and a reaction happening is no longer than 6ms.
Suggested retail price of the M2256PW is $1,500, and it doesn’t look like 3M is positioning the multi-touch monitor for home usage, but rather the enterprise market. Of course, we imagine that a few people out there would prefer this in their living room, and would probably make it happen. No word on when exactly the monitor will be released and available, though.
Samsung’s first bada phone, the Samsung Wave S8500, has landed on our desk, and we’re still not quite certain whether the new OS has a future in the mobile market. Designed to bridge the (fast-shrinking) gap between feature-phones and smartphones, bada is envisaged as the Samsung’s way to corner a new generation of handset upgraders tempted by the flexibility of a full smartphone but shy of either their price, complexity or both. Read on for our Samsung Wave S8500 unboxing and some first-impressions.
One of Samsung’s biggest pride points about the Wave is its Super AMOLED display, and while we’ve a soft-spot for the richness of color and crisp detail such panels deliver, we’ve been waiting to see whether the company’s claims for outdoor-visibility pan out. The Wave has an outdoor-specific display mode, which ramps up color saturation in certain apps; it works well, though we’d still like a screen that’s equally visible in all situations without needing tweaking.
Still, the touchscreen is responsive and the onscreen keyboard seems decent. The homescreen is a mixture of fixed icons and a slice of widget-style customization, though lacks the true interactive gadgets you’d find on, say, an Android device. In fact it’s more of a shortcut launching area than anything else, allowing you to pin your favorite apps where they’re easily accessible, rather than navigating to them through the iPhone-styled menus.
That navigation is swift, courtesy of Samsung’s 1GHz Hummingbird processor, and the Wave generally feels high quality and solid. It’s a slim device too, pleasingly narrow, and fits nicely in the hand. When you first power on you’re invited to link up your phone contacts with your Facebook and Twitter friends, though it’s a labored experience rather than the partially-automated approach you’d find in, say, HTC’s Sense. If anything, the Wave seems determined to remind us at each step that it’s not quite a feature-phone and not quite a smartphone.
We’ll be putting the Wave through its paces for the full SlashGear review, to try to figure out whether or not bada is the next big thing or an unnecessary stop-gap. Until then, enjoy the hands-on gallery and video demo!
It seems that Acer likes to sneak some of their netbooks under the radar. Of course, we don’t necessarily think they should try and hide these. After all, an 11.6-inch capacitive touchscreen netbook seems pretty great to us. And sure, these models seem to be upgrades to two Acer model netbooks that still haven’t been released, we’re still plenty excited.
The two previous version of the PT line-up, the 1820PT and 1820PTZ were announced at the end of last year, but as was aforementioned, they have yet to make it to the market. Nevertheless, that doesn’t seem to be stopping Acer from trucking on ahead, and manufacturing netbooks that might make you not want to necessarily buy the previous versions. Specs wise, the 1825PT is packed with a 1.3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor, has 4GB of RAM, and a 250GB hard drive. The 1825PTZ features a 1.3GHz Intel Pentium SU4100 processor, 250GB hard drive, and 3GB of RAM. That should obviously make it a bit cheaper than the PT as well.
The details tell us that both netbooks will come with Windows 7 Home Premium Edition, which means more customization than the Windows 7 Starter Edition that makes an appearance on most netbooks. Pricing about the netbooks is currently debatable, but apparently it’s shown up in Italy for €693.15, which is about $942. Hopefully, if this device does indeed make it to the States, the pricing will drop significantly. Of course, it’s a capacitive touchscreen, so we might be hoping a bit too hard for the impossible.
